The prior art in the area of devices for drying shoes and boots is extensive. These devices comprise a supply of hot air for drying the footwear and at least one air conducting tube for guiding the air into the shoe, and more importantly distributing the air toward the toe of the footwear where drying is usually more difficult.
Examples of such devices are given in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,417,482, 3,793,744, 4,136,464 and 4,768,293. In particular, U.S. patent 4,136,464 discloses a boot drying apparatus having a plurality of upright extending tubes having a snout-like portion pointed in one direction to blow air into the toe of the boot. When a boot is inverted and placed on a given tube, it depresses a rod which opens the connection between the tube and the hot air source. In this way, hot air is supplied only to those tubes where boots are being dried. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,793,744, a device for drying shoes is disclosed in which an L-shaped perforate nozzle tube is inserted into each shoe which is to be dried. Several nozzle tubes may be connected to a single hot air supply, and it is additionally possible to make the placing of the shoe on a nozzle tube open a flap valve connecting the tube to the air supply. The shoes are placed upright onto the nozzle tubes. U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,293 discloses a footwear drying apparatus which plugs into an open or ankle portion of the footwear while the footwear is resting on the floor. A telescopic tube extends from the ankle portion to the sole and air is blown mostly towards the toe with some air being blown towards the heel. U.S. Pat. No. 4,787,153 discloses a shoe or slipper dryer which has two air conducting tubes to be inserted into the toes of the shoes with the shoes pointing vertically. The tubes are rotatably mounted together to the base and may be rotated down to be flush with the base for compact storage. A convenient timer for timing the drying process is also provided.
In the prior art footwear dryers, individual adjustment of the position of the air conducting tubes and of the air flow through each nozzle was not provided in any convenient manner. Dryers having several air conducting tubes have not been able to adjust to the specific dimensions and drying air flow requirements of various types of footwear. It is also common in the prior art that the footwear is to be placed upside down over the air conducting tube such that the air conducting tube fully supports the footwear in the upside down position. In this arrangement ice or snow which has stuck to the footwear sole will melt and run down the sides of the footwear and onto the dryer.